In this long chapter, we turned to apply the semantics ofLV to natural language expressions:
first, the pair of thin evaluative adjectivesgoodandbadin their guises as propositional opera-tors (that is, taking propositions as their arguments). This move required complicating slightly the semantics ofLV by introducing a parameter that can supply sets of alternatives to the hyper-plan of the index of evaluation. After doing this, we were in a position to solve what we dubbed the “sub-sentential Frege-Geach” problem in Chapter2, namely the problem of why evaluative adjectives in comparative form do not express outright practical commitments, even though their meaning is compositionally derived from the positive form of those adjectives, which do express such attitudes. In short, our answer was that, when a speaker uses the positive form of an evaluative adjective, she adopts a commitment to act in a certain way in the very situation of speech, in virtue of the fact that she is expressing a certain choice among a set of practical alter-natives supplied by the index of evaluation; while when she uses the comparative she does not.
We then went on to discuss other bearers of value, such as action-types and individuals, and we saw how to apply this proposal to evaluative adjectives with increasing degrees of thickness or (stable) descriptive meaning.
In the last section of this chapter, we discussed further semantic properties of evaluative ad-jectives, first in relation to the relative/absolute distinction, and then in connection to features of their scales. We concluded—somewhat preliminarily—that evaluative adjectives appear to be relative-standard, although they are definitely not paradigmatic examples thereof. We then turned to the question of what type of scale they have—whether ordinal, ratio or interval. Fol-lowing Lassiter2017, we have argued that there are strong reasons to think that their scale is not ordinal and not ratio. The remaining option is that it is an interval scale that is intermediate with respect to concatenation, but that possibility clashes with the acceptability of “round” ratio modifiers.
In the following chapters, we will explore further the notion of evaluative and subjective prop-erties, and we will then see how evaluative sentences work in conversation—which will require us to move from the static semantics given here to a dynamic model of communication.
Chapter 5
Subjectivity & evaluativity: an
experimental approach to ordering subjectivity
Summary1
This chapter discusses two notions that have been the focus of much discussion in recent linguistic and philosophical literature, namely the notion ofjudge-dependencyandordering subjectivity. In recent
experimental work, Stephanie Solt has argued that the spectrum-like nature of the phenomenon of ordering subjectivity calls for a distinction, within the class of subjective adjectives, between multi-dimensional and judge-dependent ones. We agree with her, but we supplement her conclusions by arguing that applying her experimental paradigm to moral adjectives suggests a further distinction, within the class of judge-dependent adjectives, between (at least) experiential and evaluative adjectives.
5.1 Introduction
In Chapter2, evaluative adjectives were characterized by the possession of two features: OR
-DERING SUBJECTIVITYand ACTION-GUIDANCE. Up to this point, the latter feature has been the main focus of this dissertation: indeed, most of the long two previous chapters consists in an exposition of a scalar semantics for evaluative adjectives that builds action-guidance onto the very meaning of evaluative adjectives by—roughly—assigning plans of action as their de-notation. This chapter, by contrast, returns to discussing ordering subjectivity.
Consider the contrast between the following two dialogues:
(5.1) a. Carmen is taller than Marieke. ≈not subjective
b. No, Marieke is taller.
(5.2) a. The cake is tastier than the chocolate cookies. ≈subjective b. No, the chocolate cookies are tastier.
1This chapter stems from joint work with Federico Faroldi. Mora Maldonado has provide invaluable help with the experimental design, data analysis and comments on a final draft. I thank both, but any errors are my sole responsibility.
As we saw in §2.2.1, the speakers in both these dialogues are having a disagreement, but whereas the disagreement in (5.1) seems to turn on a completely objective and factual matter—
i.e. the respective heights of Carmen and Marieke, the disagreement in (5.2) appears to be largely subjective, as it relies on the interlocutors’ food preferences.
This occurs when these adjectives appear in comparative form—if they were in the positive form, both dialogues would appear subjective. The property in virtue of which the comparative form of an adjective gives rise to disagreements that appear to be subjective is calledORDER
-ING SUBJECTIVITY(Bylinina2017; Solt2018). Ordering subjectivity distinguishes evaluative (among other) adjectives like good, beautifulortastyfrom dimensional adjectives like tallor wide(§2.2.1).
Solt (2018) presents novel experimental data about the distribution of this property.2 In the literature, it is assumed (often implicitly) that adjectives are clearly divided between those that are subject to ordering subjectivity and those that are not. The main empirical discovery of Solt2018is that this is not the case: when one considers a sufficiently broad class of gradable adjectives, it turns out that speakers’ intuitions about the distribution of ordering subjectivity are not uniform. Participants generally agree that dimensional adjectives liketallclearly lack this property, and that predicates of personal taste (PPTs), such asfunandtasty, have it. But her results show that many other adjectives fall in a mixed class, in that there is a large variability in participants’ opinions as to whether disagreement dialogues involving those adjectives are subjective.3 Examples of adjectives in this mixed class are: dull, curvedorrough.
Solt offers an account for why certain adjectives might fall in the mixed class, and for why certain adjectives fall in the clearly subjective class. Roughly, her view is that adjectives that fall in the mixed class are such that comparative uses can be given an objective or a subjective interpretation, for a variety of reasons. Some adjectives, such asheavy, are ambiguous between a qualitative or subjective and an quantitative or objective interpretation (heavycan mean how much an object weighs and how much its weightfeelsto, e.g., someone carrying it; Kennedy 2013b). Others, such as curved, can be broken down into different dimensions or aspects (frequency and number of curves, for example), some of which may be objectively measurable and some of which may not be.
On the other hand, for adjectives that fall in the clearly subjective class there is no readily avail-able objective interpretation. Moreover, all these adjectives can be characterized, according to Solt, asJUDGE-DEPENDENT. That is, their semantics involves the notion of a semantic judge (see also §3.2.1). The difference between adjectives in the mixed class and those that are in the clearly subjective class is, therefore, modelled by Solt by introducing a judge in the seman-tics of the latter. In this way, Solt aims to represent the fact that clearly subjective adjectives necessarily involve an ‘inherent human element’ (2018, p. 76, after McNally and Stojanovic 2017).
Our purpose is to extend this experimental paradigm to moral adjectives, which Solt does not consider. Moral adjectives are interestingvis-à-vis Solt’s experimental paradigm for two rea-sons: first, moral adjectives arguably involve a judge, but the judge of a moral judgment hardly
2See also E. A. Smith et al.2015.
3What we mean by there being a large variability in participants’ opinion is that some participants took the relevant dialogues to be subjective disagreements, while some did not. But in both Solt’s experiment and ours, participants were (i) given a binary choice between describing a disagreement as a matter of opinion or fact, and (ii) presented with dialogues containing the relevant adjectives only once. So we cannot conclude whether participants are consistent in their judgments. The variability measure is across, and not within, participants.
falls under the usual notions of judge discussed in the literature on perspectival expressions. To be more specific, the usual notions of a judge in judge-dependent semantics represent it as a subject of experiences (for PPTs), qualitative perceptions (color adjectives) or emotions (emo-tional predicates); but moral judgment does not in general require any particular experience, perception or emotion. Consequently, the semantics of moral vocabulary does not require in-voking experiencers nor perceptual or emotional agents. Hence, if moral adjectives turn out to pattern with the clearly subjective class of adjectives, there is reason to enrich Solt’s notion of a judge, which is markedly experiential.
And secondly, one might suspect at least some people to have strongly objective intuitions about morality: a disagreement about what course of action was morally more correct might seemprima faciemore objective than a disagreement about what movie was more fun.4 This is a reason to expect moral adjectives to pattern with the adjectives in the mixed class. If they do, then there is reason to challenge Solt’s claim that adjectives in the mixed class do not have a judge dependent semantics.
As we will see, our results show that moral adjectives fall under the clearly subjective class.
Thus, we defend that the notion of judge-dependency has to be enriched to make room for the type of judge that is involved in moral judgment. In line with what has been defended in previous chapters, we defend that the role of the judge that is required for an appropriate semantics for moral adjectives is a practical agent, that is, an agent with intentions to act in certain ways. This is better seen considering an example:
(5.3) a. Bill leads a more ethical lifestyle than Amy.
b. No, Amy does.
As our results show, participants take dialogues like (5.3) to be subjective more or less as of-ten as dialogues involving aesthetic adjectives, PPTs or emotional adjectives. But in contrast to those cases, the impression that the disagreement between the interlocutors in (5.3) is sub-jective need not be due to the fact that the speakers have different experiences, perceptions or emotions. What we defend is that the “clash” in disagreements like (5.3) is due to speakers hav-ing conflicthav-ingplans. This is already captured in the hyperplan semantics offered in previous chapters, so we will leave all formalism aside.
The chapter is structured as follows: §5.2 presents Solt’s 2018 study. Her experimental de-sign (§5.2.1) and results are laid out (§5.2.2), and her discussion of the results is summarized (§5.2.3). Subsequently, we present our study, which uses essentially Solt’s paradigm to test a set of moral adjectives together with a sample of the adjectives that she tested (§5.3). We finish this chapter with a discussion of our results (§5.4). There, we argue for the need to enrich the notion of judge-dependency in the way just discussed. §5.5concludes.